Dangerous Hulk and the Incredible Beauty

So that's a really lame attempt at a eat blog title where I quickly give my thoughts on two films I watched in the last couple of days. Dangerous Beauty which we watched Sunday night and the Incredible Hulk which we just got back from taking the kids too.

Dangerous Beauty as noted before is part of Ali and I's veiwing game the link between Moulin Rouge and Dangerous Beauty being Courteseans. Dangerous Beauty is a favorite film of mine, I love the romanticism of it and the grand poetic nature of the speach. It also contains two great performances those of Catherine McCormack and Rufus Sewell as the star crossed lovers kept apart by their stations in life. The speaches they both make at the end of the film are the type of unabashedly nonrealistic deeply felt declarations that I swoon for. The sort of speaches that in the wrong hands are laughable but in the right hands sore off of the screen and into your chest. McCormack in particular is fine in this moment of bold and Inquisition defying speach, but is equally impressive and effective in quieter scenes. One scene in particular has her display on her face without words various looks and feelings as her Mother describes them. This is a bold, and sensous film highly reccomended A-.

The Incredible Hulk, I've been hearing some more or less it doesn't suck but it's no Iron Man reactions to this one. Maybe that helped, because I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this quite a bit, it's better than Ang Lee's version that is for sure. Is it as good as Iron Man, not quite, but it doesn't fall too far short of it either. Liv Tyler is the weak link performance wise, but it doesn't really hinge on her and she isn't terrible. Smartly this Hulk completely ignores the first film and creates a new backstory which is given during the opening credits, the great thing about this is it's closer to the old TV series than the last movie in fact the sequence has shots and bits that are almost identicle to the series opening sequence. There are other nice homages to the series, quite obviously the studio has chosen to distance this film from the previous and try instead to associate it with the popular TV series, a wise move. The CGI work in this one is also much better, it's still CGI but it feels more real. I think this is much much closer to the film fans were expecting and wanted 5 years ago. It's a cross between the comics and the old TV Series as opposed to the comics and a Haiku.
B

Stan Winston

Special effects and Makeup master Stan Winston passed away on Sunday. Stan had a hand on numerous TV and film projects over the last three plus decades, from Roots to Edward Scissorhands to Jurassic Park to this summers Iron Man. Winning four academy awards in the process and making the movies a little more magical. One of my favorites is the not so classic Monster Squad from the late 1980's. Where he had to recreate the look of the classic Universal Studios monsters while varying them enough so as not to incur a lawsuit from Universal who had their makeup designs for the monsters copyrighted. Hollywood has lost a true artist and craftsman, the type that no computer can replace, though they have been trying for years.

Cloverfield and the theory of lowered expectations

Just watched Cloverfield with Alex. You know what? it was pretty good. How can that be you ask? Well there is no real answer to that question, but there is a theory.

THE THEORY OF LOWERED EXPECTATIONS AND OVERHYPAGE: TM Basically one theory that cuts both ways. This usually happens with "good" films not "great" ones or "terrible" ones. On the one hand if everyone you know tells you that a movie they just saw was one of the greatest movies of all time, chances are you wont think so. Your expectations have been raised so high that no film, but one of the greatest films of all time, I mean literally one of the top three films ever made, could satisfy your expectations. On the flip side, If everyone you know tells you a film is terrible, 1. have a good reason for watching it anyway, and 2. chances are that if there are any redeeming qualities to the film at all you're more likely to see them. Your friends watched it expecting a great movie and it wasn't, so they say it was bad. You then watch it expecting a bad movie, and to you it's good, because you were expecting terrible. Expectations can really mess with your viewing experience.

Two recent examples The Mist and Cloverfield. And I didn't have a ton of friends tell me much of anything about either of these but the general critical response and buzz in general is that they were both subpar. I think horror films are particularly suseptible to the theory, in that those who like horror films are always looking for the one that measures up to the things in their head that make them afraid and it's very rare for something to succeed when it's competeing with the active, altering and adaptive human brain. The other thing is if you go to a horror movie you expect to be scared if you are not you are disappointed, you were expecting to get scared. Now you go to a horror movie that you heard wasn't very scary you really aren't looking for that anymore you are looking for what else might be of interest.

Now both The Mist and Cloverfield had advantages to being watched at home on DVD. The Mist on the 2 disc special edition DVD has a black and white version of the film, this is the director's perferred version of the film and for me it really worked. It also really worked for Alex, while not a particulalry gory film there is some blood, well in glorious black and whute blood looks a lot like ink, which isn't nearly as scary and red blood. With Cloverfield one of the big complaints from people seemed to be that because it's all shot from the perspective of a handheld video camera it shakes a lot. People in the theatre were getting motion sick and naseous. On the small screen it didn't bother me one bit. I remember a similar complaint about Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives, I saw it on the small screen too, no problem. So one of the things that really seemed to turn a lot of people off right away was e,iminated in my view on a DVD screening as opposed to a theatrical screening.

When you hear something isn't very good I think you tend to stop watching for what it isn't doing and see what it is doing. The Mist is really a pyschological story about the nature of mobs, and it does that very well. When you stop looking at it as a monster movie and more in that vein, there are actually some scary things happening, they just aren't gross or what Alex calls poppy outy. Cloverfield too, if you take it for what it is, and can avoid vomiting, you might just find it entertaining.

You know what else helps, get a ten year old boy who hasn't seen it all a hundred times before and whatch it with him. If he likes it I guarentee it will improve at least a letter grade in your book.

Cloverfield B
The Mist B+

Everybody should be Kung Fu Panda viewing

Took the kids Friday night to Kung Fu Panda. This is a winner! The animation is top notch, and the voice talent actually works instead of being a stunt, which happens far too frequently lately. Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane and Jack Black particularly bring more than just a voice to their characters. They help to complete a performance. If you have kids, get thee to Kung Fu Panda. If you don't have kids, borrow one. A-

Spectacular spectacular!!

Above all things this is a story about Love!

Moulin Rouge is filled with moments that remain in my brain long after the film is over. This is one of my favorite films, which in itself would be reason enough to watch it. But let me tell you how we came to watch it Friday night. As anyone who's anyone knows, I love lists and along with lists go schedules and along with schedules go trains...but we are getting off point here. Another thing I love is formulating a reason for watching a movie. With so many films in the world, and even more than that in my personal collection, sometimes it's hard for me to decide what to watch. So I'll get myself on little marathons to eleminate some of the choice or at least to narrow it down (i.e the large number of John Wayne films recently consumed or the Stephen King festival). This dates back 4 or 5 years when we had Alfred Hitchcock month. Ali and I have come up with a new viewing strategy. We alternate choosing films, so I began with Cassandra's Dream, which we watched Thursday night. Friday night Ali chose Moulin Rouge, via the connecting tissue of Ewan McGregor. In the next few nights hopefully we will watch Dangerous Beauty, my choice, with the connecting tissue Courtesans. We are alternating choosing the films but the chooser has to have a connection to the previous film. It can be a cast or crew member, theme, genre, or any other reasonable connection. Silly old Dunkelbergers.

One day when I was bored, I came up with this idea of creating a Christmas present that I would send out to friends and family if I won the lottery and could afford to do this. I made a list of the 10 films I would most like to share, possibly my 10 favorites films, although let's be honest, there are probably 30 to 40 films vying for placement on that list and the finalists would vary depending on the day. So the gift would be these 10 films on DVD. They would come in a box set, the outer packeging of which I would design and have manufactured. Inside there would be a glossy booklet with an introduction and an essay on each of the films that I would write. Here is the list of films.

1. Hamlet (1996)
2. Moulin Rouge
3. Life is Beautiful
4. My Neighbor Totoro
5. Citizen Kane
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. Annie Hall
8. Goodfellas
9. Sunrise
10. North By Northwest

Here is a first run at the Moulin Rouge essay that appears in the booklet in my head.

"THE GREATEST THING YOU'LL EVER LEARN IS TO LOVE AND BE LOVED IN RETURN"

When Ali and I were married, Alex was on his way. I said to Ali in our wedding vows that I knew that she would be the right person to help me teach our son how to love. One of the greatest struggles we have and one of the most important things we do in life is to love. Often when we are young we love too brightly so that we blind ourselves to all other cares in the world. Or we love too shallowly and dwell too much on the pleasures of love. This is a great movie and that is a great statement that comes from it. Because it should be the goal of each of us to struggle throughout our lives to learn how to love, not too much, not too little, and also how to accept love.

The great thing about Moulin Rouge is, not only is it about Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and above all other things Love, but it also captures the feelings of all of these things. There is something about the history and emotions behind the lyrics of the songs and the no holds barred, aim for the bleachers aspect of the visuals, that not only show that these characters are in love, but allow us to feel it as well. This is a production where everything came together in perfect harmony and created something that feels like more than a film. It is an experience. At times there are moments that feel like they have existed since the dawn of cinema, moments that feel like memories, like moments of deja vu. The first time you see them, you are not sure if you saw them in another film or if you lived them, but you feel you know them almost by heart. There are shots or scenes in this film that felt, the first time I saw them, as powerful and familiar as Julie Andrews spinning on a mountaintop at the opening of the Sound of Music.

The music is fantastic, there are times where certain songs become the soundtracks to our own lives. Moulin Rouge uses music in the same way, using for the most part existing songs, as we do in our own lives. Who doesn't have personal memories attached to songs? You're the Inspiration, We've Got Tonight, Lady in Red all bring back a flood of memories when I hear them, along with many others. Moulin Rouge uses songs to conjure up the memories of our own lives and to inform the story more rapidly or in a unique way. The Elephant Love Medley is a perfect example, for here not only is it an existing song our young lovers are signing, but snippets from at least a dozen songs, all of which we recognize and many of which every audience member will bring their own set of matching luggage complete with carry on tote to.

The cast is perfection from the leads Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman, who look perfect and sound perfect, to the suporting cast, particularly Jim Broadbent as Harold Zidler and Richard Roxburgh as the Duke. But the person most responsible of the magnificence of Moulin Rouge is the co-writer and director Baz Luhrmann, a favorite since I first saw Strictly Ballroom over 15 years ago. It is his sense of style and creativity and asthetic that gave birth to Moulin Rouge, and before you roll your eyes, birth is the right word, for Moulin rouge is a living breathing work of art. It is also, above all things, a story about love. What worthier material could there be? It is, in two words, spectacular spectacular!

A+

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead

So I've watched a few other movies besides this one in the last week, but they were films I've already watched this year - The Orphanage and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Finally did pop in something new the other night, one I had tried to get to last year in the theatre but just couldn't get there. BTDKYD, for the sake of my fingers and time, is directed by the legend Sidney Lumet. The man has been directing films for 50 years. His first feature was in 1957 with 12 Angry men, a favorite. He has directed several classic films, among them Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network. He also directed a guilty pleasure of mine - Running on Empty - which resulted in an Oscar nomination for the Late River Phoenix. That's a beautiful little film that I recommend you take a look at. On the other hand, in the "everyone has their Hook" vein, he directed the Wiz, which is almost unwatchable - I tried a year ago.

So BTDKYD, where does it fall? Well it isn't Hook, but it's no 12 Angry Men either. It's a well directed film, a very well acted film, but it's a film about everything going wrong for a group of people that, frankly, everything should go wrong for. They aren't the people you hate so much that as things start going wrong you enjoy it, but they are not sympathetic enough to make you feel bad for them either. It's like watching a very well organized and choriographed train wreck for 2 hours. Well made but not terribly engaging. And then, much like Two Lane Black Top, it just ends. And when the credits roll you aren't saying to yourself, "boy I didn't like that ending" or "I wonder what happens next with these characters?". You're saying to the screen, "Um... you forgot to wrap up that story...there are still characters that have not had their arcs resolved". This is a C.

Harvey Korman RIP

Harvey Korman passed away this week. I remember him for his great comedic performanaces on the Carol Burnett show, which in the memory of my childhood, seems to have played in the early evening every weeknight. I doubt that is true but sometimes that's how memory works. He was best when teamed with with Tim Conway, usually the straightman to Conway's idiot savant. He was also great in some of Mel Brook's comedies: High Anxiety, Blazing Saddles, and The History of the World Part 1. A funny and very likeable man.